Please join us for the next Circa History Guild program on Thursday night, March 25th at 7:00. Our speaker will be Frank J. Smith, (Ph.D., D.D.) Dr. Smith is adjunct professor of history at Georgia Perimeter College and has taught classes or lectured in colleges in Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York. He is the author of several books and many articles on history and theology.

The title of the program at The Circa History Guild is “American Protestantism and the Cold War.”

The two great nuclear superpowers, the United States and The Soviet Union, squared off around the world via client states, fighting for the “hearts and minds” of men. The values and beliefs of free republics were confronted with those of Soviet and Chinese communism on every continent. With godless Marxism on one side and Western values rooted in Christian principles on the other, one might expect almost universal support of the West by the Church.

However, argues Professor Smith,

“The picture is far more complex than what might first appear.  For during the Cold War, many Protestant denominations and churchmen adopted a position of moral ambivalence toward the superpowers or, in some cases, favored the leftist regimes. Foundational to such behavior was a commitment to a social gospel that often found expression in socialism and pacifism.”

An overview of American Protestantism reveals a spectrum of beliefs and attitudes—from those who favored a Communistic approach and criticized American foreign and military policy, to those who embraced a typical American patriotic position, to those who critiqued both Russian and American officials for opposing genuine freedom.

Dr. Smith is uniquely qualified to address this topic, having earned a doctorate in history and spent a lifetime in biblical and church history studies. He is, in fact, currently pastoring a new church in Alpharetta associated with the Reformed Presbyterian of North America (RPCNA) as well as teaching American history at Perimeter College.

It is a sad fact that few Americans under the age of forty know much about the Cold War or how our country’s foreign policy debacles affected the popular culture and the church during those fifty odd years of “Cold War” (apart from oldies war protest music.) I remember curling up beneath my desk in second grade and assuming the duck and cover position in the hall ways, just in case the Russians dropped a nuclear bomb on our rural community. I supposed that I could avoid being roasted or vaporized if I got in a tight enough ball.  We fought two large and deadly wars, Korea and Vietnam, and numerous other small ones, which were part and parcel of the “Cold War.” History was changed in fundamental ways. Socialism is just communism in homeopathic doses, and the current generation needs to remember some of the historic results of the full-blown disease.

Please join us on the 25th to learn and reminisce about the single most important factor governing American foreign policy in the post-World War Two era.

Sincerely,
Bill Potter